Swords Drawn
by Brady Corduroy
Summary: Wrote this for a short story contest on a forum. In the kingdom of Gravity Falls, the princess has been kidnapped and it's up to a jester and his sister to save the day. Can they do it? Slight hints of Wendip.


**Swords Drawn**

Dark storm clouds were descending above Gleeful castle, the sanctuary of the ruling family of Gravity Falls. These storm clouds were both the real ones that began to pour rain down on the kingdom and the figurative ones which threatened to bring a storm of uncertainty. That was why the young man stood tall in front of Regent-King Gideon.

"Sir Jester!" The Regent said in a high pitched cackling type of voice.

"My name is Dipper…" The young man said in response.

"Yeah, that's not important!" Gideon hissed back. "What does matter is that you are a strong, hulking young man, something that is a rarity right now in the kingdom!"

"Well I have been working out recently…" Dipper began to boast before Gideon cut him off.

"Silence! Due to my publicity attempts to advertise our wonderful kingdom, our treasury is entirely empty!"

"You mean those sparkling signs advertising yours-" Dipper started before being cut off again.

"Because of this, I cannot pay any knights to risk their lives, which is problematic!" Gideon whined. "Without our princess, the line of succession is broken and our enemies could take advantage of that and conquer us!"

Dipper's eyes lit up "Wait Wend- errr the princess has been kidnapped!?" He said, shocked, but still managed to correct himself from almost addressing her improperly.

"Yes, by our only knight…" Gideon tailed off for a moment. "The dark knight himself! Robbie!"

"Why did we only employ one knight?" Dipper asked. "That's not a smart strate-" Gideon then struck the wall to Dipper's right.

"Don't forget you're a jester, boy!" Gideon warned. "Unfortunately, I'm forced to turn to you in our hour's need because, well, we have no one else. Literally."

"Well you can count on me sir!" Dipper said proudly.

"Well just in case you need extra convincing, I'll imprison you and that sister of yours if you fail!" Gideon said as he threw a scratched up sword and a wooden shield with several holes in it, along with a paper map.

"If you follow that map properly, you should be able to make it to Robbie's lair, an old castle I was planning to tear down to create a water tower in it's place!" Gideon exclaimed. "But to do so, you need to travel through mystical Troll Forest!"

Dipper almost asked a question, but decided against it since he'd been cut off enough already today.

"Now be on your way and save her!" Gideon hissed. "OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!" He then locked Dipper out of the castle, sealing his fate one way or the other.

With that pretty much out of his hands, Dipper then took the short trek to his small hut of a home, which he shared with his twin sister…

"Mabel time! Mabel time! Just me and me and me! So it's Mabel time!"

Dipper walked into her singing this tune to herself aloud enthusiastically, like she did practically everything else.

"Oh hey brother!" She said. "You're home early… And not with any broken bones…" She was quiet for a moment as she continued to ponder his arrival.

"Were you fired?" She asked. "Be honest, because if so we can't wast-"

"No, I've been set off a mission to save the princess from an evil knight." Dipper moaned. "I've always wanted such an opportunity t-"

"OH MY GOODNESS AN ADVENTURE! ADVENTURE! ADVENTURE!" She screamed in excitement. "I've always wanted to go on an adventure!" Dipper shook his head.

"Absolutely not!" He said. "I'm the one who Regent-King Gideon forced into this, so I will be the one who completes this! Besides if I'm g-"

She then grabbed his collar and gave the most intense stare that screamed TAKE ME WITH YOU!

And once again Dipper couldn't resist it.

* * *

A few hours had passed since the twins had begun their journey and already it seemed hopeless; Dipper, even with his great build, didn't have the immense stamina needed for this task and wished to stop every several minutes to rest.

"Not only do I feel like my bones are gonna just drop and collapse inside of my body, but I have no idea where we are in relation to the map!" He whined. "We could be several more miles from the wretched troll forest, which is the only way to the castle!"

Mabel was writing something on her own. "What are you doing sister?"

"Oh yeah, so I made my own map for fun and it has all these cute little memories of where we stopped at!" She said happily. "Like the pond where we met the little tadpole I borrowed before his mama realized he was gone. Or the rocks with all the drawings of people playing sword fights!"

Dipper then realized Mabel had essentially done her own map, just with check marks that made it more recognizable. "Sister, you're a genius! We're only about a hour and a half off the trail to Troll Forest! Wendy here we come!"

"Oh, you forgot to call her princess Wendy!" Mabel said.

Dipper blushed a bit, embarrassedly.

"Whoops, I mean Princess Wendy!"

Mabel had a cute little grin on her face as she thought about it, but said nothing aloud. True to Dipper's prediction, roughly an hour and a half passed when the pair had reached an area with suddenly brooding and thickened forestry that looked far more sinister than anything they had encountered to this point.

"Mystical Troll Forest." Dipper said in a hushed tone. "They say no one has ever reached the other side and lived to tell about it…"

"Well obviously that's not true if the Black Knight and the Princess are over there right now." Mabel said pointedly. "So let's break on through to that other side!"

"Yeah!" The two shouted in unison and charged ahead.

Within seconds they reached a fork in the road; Well actually it would be some other utensil we haven't invented yet as this spread off into four different directions: To the right, to the left, center rightwards way, and center leftwards way.

"Aww man, this must be why so many people got lost." Dipper began, his tone incredibly anxious. "There are four different directions, but endless possibilities. For example going right could be correct, but then another way may require us to go to the leftmost center and even..."

Dipper began to tail off as he listed several of the possible combinations they could go. Mabel had a more practical method to determining her answer.

"Ini, Miney, Miney, Moe, catch a lion by his toe, if he hollers let him go before he eats you! Ini miney, miney, MOE!"

Her finger pointed in the direction of the leftmost center direction and began walking that way, catching Dipper's attention.

"MABEL!" He shouted. "Where are you going!?"

"Well we have to go at some point, so let's get going!" She said as she ran down the center left pathway. Dipper wasn't left with many other options and so he chased after her.

After a few moments they ended up facing yet another diverging path of similar directions.

"What the?" Dipper said in astonishment. "We were just here weren't we?" Mabel meanwhile had found something edible on the ground.

"Bottoms up!" She said as she ate it rather quickly. "Want any Dipper?" She then showed the remaining portion, which looked soft like undercooked burrito meat.

"N-No thanks." Dipper said, mildly disgusted. "Where did you find that anyways?"

"On the ground." Mabel said. "I was hungry and it looked alright, so bottoms up I say!" She then stuffed the remainder into her mouth and chowed it down.

"Alright if that works for you…" Dipper said. "Whenever you're finished, follow me to rightmost path. I wanna try a different way this time."

And so they went that way, and sure enough they ended up back at what seemed to be the same signpost with the same directions yet again.

"Alright this time Mabel, let's go backwards." Dipper said. "I wanna see what happens."

"But we ju-" Now it was Dipper's turn to hush his sister to silence and they walked backwards and they were shocked upon what happened.

"I knew it!" Dipper shouted. "WE'RE BACK AT THE START OF THE FOREST!"

"It's like a maze!" Mabel exclaimed. Dipper gave her a perplexed look. "Yeah Mabel, that's exactly what it is, and like most mazes there is likely only one correct path to the other side."

As Dipper began to explain mazes, Mabel took a seat on the ground and began to rub her stomach softly. Her face scrunched up and she cringed slightly as she did this.

"... So I propose the two of us take tur-" Dipper turned around to see his sister lying stomach down on the ground and shaking visibly. "Mabel are you ok?"

She said nothing for a moment, just lying down, moaning and groaning. "Noooooo… I feel like I'm g-"

She then began to cough profusely and rolled onto her side, continuing to shake and shiver. "G-Gooo on without me-e." She said, her voice weak to the point where Dipper had to lean in to hear her. "Save the princess, your love…"

"No, it doesn't matter right now!" Dipper said emphatically. "It doesn't matter if it's Princess Wendy or Mother Mary! I refuse to leave you here to die!"

"Dipper… I'm g-"

"I don't care if you're dying or not!" He said. "You're the only family I have left and I will not leave it to rot in this nightmarish forest!"

He then used his great strength to lift her and lay her down on top of a smoothed out log. Mabel continued to shake and shiver, but eventually was able to fall asleep and reach some sort of equilibrium where her body didn't shake the entire log to the point where it could roll on away. Dipper then gathered a scattered collection of leaves to create a blanket for her before doing the same for himself.

 _So in the end I guess this is going just as I would have expected it to have gone._ He thought to himself. _Disastrous. We need a miracle to get out of this alive and well._

* * *

When Dipper awoke, it was night time now. Who knows how late exactly it was compared to earlier, but the moon's reflection upon the earth was faint and weak. Along with no stars in the sky, it was far too dark for Dipper's liking. As he oriented himself he soon began to realize something.

"Mabel… we're not alone right now." He said, sounding worried and afraid. "There is something out here and it knows we're here." Mabel, still fast asleep, didn't respond. Dipper, having abandoned the makeshift weapons Gideon had "gifted" upon him awhile back, was defenseless against whatever was lurking nearby.

 ***chomp* *chomp***

 _It's hungry._

The sound of crumpling leaves spelled out that it was not too far to the twins' right.

 _Please go away. Please._

It was moving closer. As Dipper turned to his right, he saw flashing yellow eyes in a nearby bush.

 _Oh no. No no no. Please just go. Please._

Dipper engaged in an impromptu staring contest with this creature for several moments, neither budging their positions. Suddenly the eyes disappeared.

 _Phew._

And then the bush collapsed onto the ground.

 _NO! NO! NO! NO!_

Suddenly the eyes became more defined and it revealed a creature, although it was not what Dipper had expected. It was no more than a foot tall and had a humongous buck tooth in it's front and a goofy smile that was as inviting as it's eyes hadn't been. And even those eyes now looked less sinister and merely bright now that it was up close and personal with him.

"W-Well hello there little guy." Dipper said awkwardly. "What's your name?"

"GOOSE!" It shouted. "GOOSE!"

"Heh heh, you're not really a goose though, that would be confusing." He stated. "I think I'm gonna call you Soos!"

"Noose!" It said.

"Soos!" Dipper responded.

"Soos! Soos!" It repeated.

"There we go now that that's settled." Dipper began before Soos began to run off. "Hey, get back here!" He gave a brief chase before he realized Soos was not running from him but to show him something. It was a piece of paper with several arrows on it, pointing in various directions.

"Center right, far left, straight, center right again…" Dipper began before it hit him. "Oh wait, this could be the way out! I mean it's just as likely to lead us to doom, but what else do we have to lose right now?"

At the bottom the piece of paper read only "The Author." _Hmm I wonder who that could be. Well it's not important right now._

"Mabel I think I found a way out of h-" He began before seeing his sister, fully awake but her face flushed in the color green. "Mabel, are you alright? Speak to me!"

Mabel then shook around violently back and forth before stopping and putting her hands over her mouth. She then began to vomit. But it was no regular vomit as she vomited out an endless stream of rainbow all over the ground, which seemingly just disappeared. This went on for several minutes before it abruptly stopped and she fell right to the ground, face first.

"MABEL SPEAK TO ME!" Dipper cried.

"Yeah, what's up little bro?" She said nonchalantly.

"ARE YOU OK?" He asked, nearly hysterically. "You just threw up a rainbow or several of them! I'm not sure which one but either way, it's concerning!"

"Well I'm alright now trust me!" She said, a huge smile coming across her face. "Let's go and save Princess Wendy!"

Dipper was really confused and not entirely sure how to handle his sister sometimes, so in this moment he decided just to move on from the situation.

"Well thanks to our new buddy Soos here…" Dipper began before he got cut off by Mabel cuddling their new friend. "OH MY GOODNESS, YOU'RE THE CUTEST THING EVER!"

"Anyways" Dipper continued. "He led me to this scrap of paper, which I believe may be a pattern to escaping this forest."

"Yay! Go Soos!" She said as she high-fived the little guy.

"So I say as long as you're feeling up to it, that we follow this pattern and try to escape the forest." He said.

"Absolutely!" She responded. "Let's do it!"

The twins and Soos approached the starting section of the forest with four diverging paths, but now knew where to head. Or well hoped they did.

"Alright, according to this note we should head towards the centering path that diverges right." Dipper said. "So let's give it a try."

So they walked that way and quickly reached a new area of many paths.

"Hey, this is different! I can tell because there's not as much moss on that sign!" Mabel exclaimed, pointing at the directional arrows. "I think we're finally on the right track." Dipper nodded in agreement. "Next, straight ahead."

And so they went straight and followed the rest of the note, happy now that it no longer led to dead ends and looping paths. Despite the amount of arrows on the page (over eight of them) it took less time than they expected and it wasn't long at all before they reached what appeared to be an exit.

"I see sunlight shining from that last path!" Dipper exclaimed. "I think we're finally going to get out of here!"

Just as Dipper said that, three shadowy figures jumped in front of them and blocked their path! They hissed and scratched the ground feral-like before howling in unison.

"No you're not!" One of them screeched as they emerged further to reveal their true form: Gnomes! But no ordinary gnomes were these guys; they had fangs like a vampire and bloodshot eyes that made them look as if they had never slept a night in their lives.

"No one ever gets out of Troll Forest!"

They began to attack when Soos lunged at his body.

"GOOOSE!" He screeched as a gnome bit into him.

"I've never had gopher before… Until now!" The gnome said sinisterly as he began to bite into Soos' right leg. But Soos bit it right back in the nose. Soon it was Soos versus the gnomes while the twins could only watch in horror.

"What do we do?" Mabel asked. "He's our friend, we can't just let him die!"

Soos began to point towards the exit. "GOOOSE!" He screeched again.

"I think he's telling us to go, Mabel!" Dipper said. "I think he's distracting them for us to be able to get out."

"But-But… I don't w-" Mabel said.

"I don't either!" Dipper said sternly. "But we can't just wait around for them to come after us! We need to go while we can!" Dipper then stretched out his hand to her, which she grabbed. They then began to run.

"WE'LL NEVER FORGET YOU!" They shouted in unison as they ran with all of their might away from the forest, not stopping for several minutes before finally collapsing on the ground, panting and out of breath.

"Phew." Dipper said, clearly out of breath and exhausted. "It's probably gonna be a lot longer til we get to… the castle though…"

"Dipper, look at the trail." Mabel said matter of factly. It led directly to the castle which was in seeing distance. "We're right there!"

"Oh… From now on you're reading these maps then." Dipper said bashfully. Dipper looked up at the sky, realizing it was somehow nighttime still. "Mabel, isn't it a little odd that it's still dark outside?"

"Not really, why do you ask?" She said.

"Well I mean, we spent an entire night in that forest, spent the top hours of the night finally escaping, and yet we still haven't seen the sun?" Dipper said. "Something's up with that."

As he finished, the ground beneath them shook violently, knocking the twins to their knees. They soon saw dragon wings emerge from sides of the castle, breaking through the stone and holding the castle up and stable up somehow.

"TH-TH-THERE'S A DRAGON IN THERE!?" Dipper asked as he shook terribly and his face became flushed white and pale. "WHEN DID A DRAGON COME INTO THE PICTURE?"

"Oh yeah, Robbie's a dragon at night." Mabel stated matter of factly. "Everyone knows that lil bro bro."

"What do you mean everyone!?" Dipper asked, still clearly shocked from the transformation. "I didn't know that! I'm sure Regent Gideon didn't knowingly employ a dragon either!"

"Because neither of you read the National Commoner of course!" Mabel said ecstatically. "It's THE news of the kingdom, Dipper. You need to keep up with it!"

"Whatever gossiper tells less lies isn't really that important right now." Dipper said. "What is important is figuring out how to get into that castle!"

"Well hey, maybe we could just knock lightly?" Mabel suggested. "Maybe he wants a fight and will let us in!" Dipper gave back a half hearted glare. "Yeah and how would we fight a dragon?"

"Errr, get back to me on that." She said nervously. "So I guess we should try to not let him know we're in his castle shouldn't we?"

"Yeah, that's the best course of action I would say." Dipper said in agreement. "Perhaps we should try tunneling into the castle from underground and then sneak in and out with Wendy before he even realizes what's coming?"

"You did it again." Mabel said with a huge grin.

"Did what?" Dipper asked.

"You called her by her common name again!" Mabel pointed out. "And I know why… It's because you wanna…" She leaned in close and hushed her voice down. "... Kiss her!"

"Not true!" Dipper replied bashfully. "It may be true that I am a rather strong man and would get any other cute woman, but the princess herself? No chance! … Even though there was that time I made a good joke and she said ""nice dude."" That was really awesome and she came off really cut-" He stopped himself after he realized he said too much, but it was already too late.

"I was right! You do have a tiffy for the princess!" Mabel said excitedly. "Well I would like to live in a palace…"

"It's really not all that important right now, Mabel!" Dipper chided her. "What's important is that we actually save her first!"

"Right, right!" Mabel said as they continued to walk toward the castle, but not close enough that Robbie would notice their presence. Dipper then began pulling dirt from the ground. "Well let's get digging…"

And so dig they did. With no tools other than their own bare hands, it was a very tedious experience with little progress over that day. After what must have been hours of doing so, they stopped and looked up to check their progress.

"Well, we're like… three quarters of the way to being four quarters of the way there… maybe?" Mabel said, struggling to put an optimistic tone to it as they quickly hid back underground to avoid detection.

"There has to be a faster way!" Dipper said. "If only we had some more help!"

Just then, the hole above them caved in as something else came in with them. Luckily it was…

"Soos!" Mabel exclaimed. "You didn't die, even though you have a lot of scratches on you…"

"I'm glad he's safe, although I don't know if he c-" Dipper had started before seeing Soos chip away at the ground faster than they had been before.

"I think we got our help!" Mabel said. Dipper nodded in agreement. "That we sure have."

* * *

A few hours of tunneling later and the group finally reached a point where soil was thicker and more wooden than it had been earlier.

"I think we're underneath the castle itself finally!" Dipper said. "Soos you're gonna need to tunnel upwards so we can get in there."

"SOOOOOSS!" He said as he began chomping away at the dirt. He began doing so at an even faster pace than earlier and they were making through it at an even faster than expected pace.

"We got this guys!" Dipper exclaimed. "We're coming for you Wendy!"

And soon they reached the top where the final wooden board was chomped through and the group reached the top and into the castle and it seemed like they were well on their way to saving the day. Until they realized that they were not in the right part of the castle at all.

"Huh, this doesn't feel like any room in any castle I've ever been in?" Mabel asked aloud. But Dipper knew exactly where they were in. "Oh no, we've made a grave error! We're in a-"

"Jail cell! Just where you all belong!" A mysterious voice said as he walked into the room. It was the villain himself!

"The Dark Knight!" Dipper said in shock. "You knew this would happen didn't you?"

"You're sure right I did!" He stated coldly. "I sort of wish you'd done this when it was night time for… reasons. But I have you trapped now!"

"You fiend!" Dipper shouted. "Why would you even betray the kingdom's trust like this?"

"Well, you know… for like power… and stuff." He said in a stupid voice.

"You don't even sound like you know why you did this…" Dipper said.

"Hey shut up!" Robbie said angrily. "You're just a jester! A clown at best!"

"I'm more respected right now then you'll ever be!" Dipper retorted back.

"Umm, I know you're like evil and all now, but I've never actually met a knight before!" Mabel interjected. "So would you mind signing my harmonica for me!?" She then played it in the highest, most incorrectly tuned pitch ever. It hurt everyone's ears immensely.

"Since when have you had a har-" Dipper began. "Wait did you see that?"

"See what?" Mabel asked. Dipper got in close and whispered "Robbie… he like flashed when you played whatever that was. It's almost like-"

"It actually hurt him…" Mabel said. Dipper then covered his ears as best he could. "You know what to do!" He said.

She then played the same pitch/tune again but longer and harsher. As Dipper's ears rang, both of them saw Robbie's entire being flash pale until he totally froze up.

"He's like stone!" Mabel said.

"That's because he is, Mabel." Dipper said very matter of factly. "He is a statue now."

Soos then slipped through the bars and gave the keys to the twins to unlock the jail door. They then traveled to the nearby bedroom to find the princess, alive and well.

"Oh hey, I'm saved… I think?" She asked.

"Hi Princess!" Mabel said. "I'm Mabel and this is my brother, I think you've met him before! We came to stop the knight and became a statue, so I guess he's not coming back!"

"Oh yeah, the really buff jester! I think I have some new uses for you…" She said as she stroked his chin. And they all lived happily ever after.

 **THE END!  
**

* * *

"Hold on a second!" Mabel said as she threw a pillow at Dipper. "Your story had me hook, line and sinker Dipper… UNTIL THAT!"

"Well hey, at least it was mostly worth it th-" Dipper tried to say bashfully before Mabel interrupted him again.

"THE ENDING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!" Mabel exclaimed, sounding greatly annoyed. "...Also why was Gideon the regent dude if Wendy is like older then us?"

"Well just uh… switch their ages and uh it works perfectly." Dipper, blushing red realizing things were falling flat, was stuck in a bind. "It's rather convenient if I say so myself, heh heh."

Mabel just glared back. "Well if you're gonna just cheat me out of a good story like that, then I may as well make up for it with my own then! It takes place in the future…"

And Dipper sat back and listened closely.


End file.
